Black Tiger: First Kill
by wjames260
Summary: Tsugumi is an assassin. She is a machine of a person. A cold, calculating, observational kid. This story details the moments leading up to her first kill, as supervised by her mentor.


First, there is the hallway. The walls are white but yellowing along the ceiling's edge and gray streaks of water lead to spots of rust on the floor. The floor is white, too, and tiled. Several tiles are cracked and splintered, and there is a residue of chalky dust about the edges of the hall. The ceiling is also white and missing several tiles, exposing the old pipes full of peeling duct tape.

At the end is a white door, peppered with old handprints and patches of missing paint, exposing a sick, yellow color of the natural wood. It's doorknob glints in the fluorescent lighting. There are now windows anywhere, and the only other door is the one behind her.

As she walks, she realizes the buzzing noise comes from the light fixtures. They line the ceiling, trailing all the way down the hall. They are bright, evenly-spaced circles connected by cords encased in steel. They emit both light and noise.

The light is solid and even, with no shadows cast about the hall nor discrepancies in it's gradient. The only shadows are her own, shadows under her nose, under her chin, and under her clothing. Below her, a faint shadow is never still, reflecting the movement of her legs and arms.

The noise is not solid and even, but is consistent. A constant buzzing sound, faint enough to seem unreal. Sometimes, the buzzing seems to engorge and then staccato, as if some fly is hitting itself against the bulbs. Then, it quiets down again and recedes into the middle of her mind.

There are other noises. Her shoes clacking against the tile, the way the clacking echoes and stops, each step repeating ceaselessly until it fades, overcome by the sound of the following step. And, there are smaller sounds. Her pants rubbing against her thighs, her shirt rubbing against her armpits, her breath as she inhales through her nose, making a tiny, whistling noise before she exhales out her mouth. Her breathing is quick, jagged, but consistent. If she listens carefully, she will hear even the smallest of noises; her own heartbeat, a mouse scurrying along some pipe in the ceiling, the odd ticks and groans of the water-bloated walls.

She notices the taste of her saliva, the vague remnants of mint and toothpaste and black coffee, and she feels the thickness of her tongue, the way it sits in her mouth, the way it presses against the back of her upper front teeth. She feels the texture of her teeth, almost like linoleum, and the texture of the roof of her mouth, the ridges and the saliva ducts.

There's more texture.

Her lips touching each-other. The skin in her armpit rubbing against itself. The cotton in her pants, the fibers of her spandex and the way it forms to her torso, clinging to it, moving with it. Over that, the weight of her jacket, the weight of the plastic buttons and the collar. She feels the way her underwear clings to her skin, and the way her socks wrap around her feet and ankles, and the shoes encasing them and the sweat between her toes, her groin, her armpits. Her clammy hands. Her dry elbows and knees. She feels the fingerless gloves stuffed in her coat pockets, the left handed glove in the left pocket and the right handed glove in the right pocket. The right glove is slightly lighter than the left because she cut the tip of the trigger finger.

Her bangs tickling her forehead, Her hair lying against her ears. Her muscles shifting and adjusting with each step, the tightening and releasing of ligaments, the bending of joints, the alternating pressure in her knees and ankles. The hardness of the tile against the soles of her shoes, and the air touching her hands as she swings her arms.

She smells her body odor, the way it sifts as she moves, her sweat and her shampoo and deodorant. The tinny scent of metal and rust, the mercury in the lights, the lead in the walls, the asbestos in the ceiling, the calk between the tiles. And, some scent of tepid water in the exposed pipes, some scent of musk and decay.

What does she see? The hallway, the whiteness, the light fixtures, yes, but she also sees the lines between the tiles, the little cracks in the floor, the smudges of fingerprint and settled dust on the walls. She sees the individual screws used on the lights, the steel rims around the fixtures, the filaments in the bulbs and the welded plates holding the cords to the ceiling. She even sees the neurons in her vision, the floaters and white specks, and she sees the way her pupils dilate in accordance with the lights.

Encasing her, and the hallway, and her movements, is a white stillness. The hallway that goes on forever in each direction. The noises are constant and rhythmic and the lighting is constant and rhythmic and the tiling is constant and rhythmic and white and blurry from water-stains and drywall dust. The doors sit at each end of forever, one receding behind her and one approaching in front of her.

She does not recall entering the hallway, but she knows she must have because she is there and if she chose to recall entering the hallway, she could. She also does not recall the previous step or the one before that or the one before that. Any moment prior to the current one is lost, purposely shut down, routinely funneled into the bottom of her mind.

Input is a constant barrage. She accepts it, organizes it, analyzes it, and stows it behind her. Although this used to be a conscious set of actions, it is not anymore. In the first couple years of her training there were many distractions and many missed details, but as time went on she realized that distractions are not distractions because they are information. It is up to her to sift out the distractions that matter from the ones that don't.

She began to create her pattern in observation. One moment leads to the next which will lead to the one after, thus erasing the previous. Ahead of her is the goal, the door, the way the brass knob shimmers in the light, the thin gap between the door and the doorframe, the lack of peephole, the rust on the hinges, the marks in the peeling paint. The door is painted white and she smells the oil.

As the distance closes she measures it. She measures the distance of each stride, the distance between the walls, the distance between the ceiling and the floor. And, all the angles, the ninety degrees between the wall and the floor, the various angles at which she should throw her knife if somebody, at any specific height, should appear in the doorway.

She measures the circumference of the bulbs and the width of the cords and the changing pitch of the buzzing noise as she passes underneath. She measures the velocity of her walking and keeps her pace steady. As she arrives at the door, she measures how quickly her velocity goes to zero and the centimeters between her shoes and the frame.

She stands in front of it and listens. She hears nothing from inside. Turning around, she looks back the way she came and feels a sort of anticipation, a sudden swing in perspective. At the other end of the hall is the door she once came through. At first, she doesn't recall it, then the memories flow. Each step it took to cross the hall, and how it felt to open that door, step into the hallway, and then close it behind her. She recalls the texture of the doorknob, the swing of the hinges, the creaking noise it made, and the dust that fell from the ceiling as the door slammed shut and it's noise echoed through the hallway.

She feels the lack of expression on her face, and so, just for fun, she runs the tip of her tongue along the backs of her lower teeth then her upper teeth. She feels the ridges of them, the shapes of them, the texture of them, their smoothness, their wetness, their hardness, their taste.

Her mind is made of steel, and she feels that too, envisions a metal sphere sitting in blackness, unmoving, unattached to anything but the blackness itself. There are no indents on the sphere, no ridges or gradient of hue or light. There is just the sphere curving ceaselessly into itself, solid all the way through.

Closing her eyes, she casts the vision away and sees the dark of her eyelids, the pinkish hue of the lights reaching through the skin, and the quivering black spots, floaters and specks that undulate and release and linger in her peripheries. Opening her eyes, the hallway returns, a sudden white and fluorescence, tile and stiffness, all right angles and straight lines.

There is a knock on the door. Three knocks from the back of a knuckle. The sound echoes just a bit before fading out. Turning around to face the door, she almost sees her reflection in the knob. Before she can she grasps it, covering herself with her hand. She feels a hastiness to the moment, a sudden desire to be somewhere else, but also notes the excitement, anticipation, nervousness, and anxiety. These feelings exist as words within her, as footnotes or diagrams rather than abstractions. She knows their definitions.

Realizing these feelings have been with her at least since she entered the hallway, she grips the knob a little tighter and imagines the metal sphere again, sees it shudder, hears a hollow noise as if something dinged off the surface. Closing her eyes, she replaces the sphere with a ditch-drain and watches all those feelings flow down it, full of mud and rainwater, debris and leaves, trash.

When she is empty, she turns the knob. It feels cold in her palm, she feels her skin oils smudging the brass, she hears the tumblers opening and collapsing, feels the odd weightlessness of the door as it swings and the creaking of the hinges.

Then, there is a new room, and she steps into it. This room is also white and full of tiles and right angles and straight edges. There is also a buzzing noise from the light fixtures. And the drywall dust cakes the floor tiles and the rusty puddles lie beneath pipes and the gray streaks of bloated water along the wall and the yellowing mold near the ceiling. But, this is not a hallway, it is a room. There is no door at the other end. And, there are two other people here.

She smells a man's body odors, his sweat, saliva, urine and that odd sting of blood. In the middle of the room is a man in a wooden chair. His hands are tied with rope against the bars of the chair-back, his ankles tied against the chair legs.

The chair creeks as he shifts his weight around.

He wears pinstriped gray pants with a dark stain around the groin; black dress shoes with one lace undone; a sports blazer, grey-knit, cotton smell, little bits of fiber hanging in the air; a black, undone tie; a staunch white dress shirt with a ruffled collar and the top two buttons undone.

She hears him breathing. His breaths are harsh, irregular, high-pitched and muffled by the bag over his head. The bag is brown, like an old potato sack. Another rope ties the bag around his neck, and beneath the bottom hem of the bag, she sees a thick vein bulging against his skin and the rope. The vein clenches, tightens, sometimes it releases and tightens again, and this movement coincides with his breathing and the way he's grinding his teeth, clenching his jaw, moving his body with any autonomy he can. His fingers twist about, grasping at air, the rope, the chair-rungs, another finger. His knees quiver. His chest rises and falls. His torso adjusts and shifts, tightens, as if trying to make sense of it's confinement. He sucks his gut in all the way and then releases it. He does it again.

She sees the shape of his face beneath the bag. The ridge of his nose and the way it protrudes, the indent of his upper lip, the dimple of his chin, his forehead, eyebrow ridges, cheekbones. His mouth is open and as he breathes, the bag sucks in and lets loose.

Then, the noises he makes. Little noises from his throat, little whimpers, cries, harsh breaths. The odd shifting of his feet. The creeks and groans of the chair. Then, a quiet begging, almost inaudible, as if his voice refuses to do anything but peer out from his mouth. She ignores him.

 _Are you ready?_

She turns to her left, to the other person in the room, his hand is outstretched. He wears a white suit with a white vest and a white tie and white pants and white shoes. The suit is pressed, dry-cleaned, smells like flowery cologne. His eyes are steady, cloudy blue. His glasses glint in the fluorescent lighting. His jaw-line is like a razor, his temples indented like small craters, his lips and mouth stoic like a statue. His hair-line has an edge to it and is slicked back, blonde and greased. She smells the familiar tonic.

There are messy feelings, memories, bonds that lay in the swamp of her sub-concious, that threaten to sneak upwards and outwards if she does not block all holes between the outside of the metal sphere and the inside.

Closing her eyes, she creates another drain-pipe and watches everything flow away, collecting at the bottom of her mind. When she opens her eyes again, she sees just his form, his skin and clothing, his non-expression. The stillness of his eyes threaten to make her feel again, but she shuts it down by moving.

Taking her gloves out from her pockets, she pulls them on one at a time, and adjusts them before grabbing the pistol from his hand. She holds it, looks at it, observes it, plays with the grip. She sees it's design, spins the barrels, feels the weight of it and notices it's lighter than it used to be.

Looking back to the man in the chair, she watches his movements, his clenching and unclenching fingers, his rising and falling chest, his quivering ankles and knees, his breathing and his little whimpers.

Raising the gun with both hands, she hesitates and measures the distance, the angles, the possible outcomes. She feels the trigger, how it pushes back as she pulls.

How the gun cocks and jerks. The sudden noise that blocks out all other noises, the sudden smell that blocks out all other smells. The way she must keep her hands steady, the way her pulse quickens, the way she's suddenly not aware of anything anymore.

She does not close her eyes, she does not notice or measure or feel. There is just the man. The way he shudders and jerks, gasps and groans. And, there is the room. White tiles, right angles, straight edges. Steady buzzing of the bulbs, steady brightness of the lights.

She does not recall how they got here, how the pistol ended up in her hand. She does not recall pulling the trigger, but she lowers the gun anyway, clicks the safety and looks to her left.

There he is. She watches him watch the man die. Then, he looks at her, expressionless, steady, still.

 _Good job._


End file.
